Cross the line
by RicePaper
Summary: In times when an assassin cross looks at you menacingly with katars flashing brightly in the sunlight, choices such as “scream” and “run” would seem extremely attractive. Yet for the priestess Eve, this was the first of many events that would soon follow.
1. Beware of bottles

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Ragnarok

* * *

**Cross the line**

_Or never to see what's on the other side

* * *

_

**Chapter 1- beware of bottles

* * *

**

"… If you don't get lost when I count to three..."

There was a certain amount of satisfaction as he said those words; this grew evidentially as fear began to seep into the facial expression of the message's recipient. A priest, possibly in her teens, red hair and purple garbed, not one who stood out in a crowd.

But it was irritating, her mere presence was.

"One"

Evelyn Serephen swallowed nervously, watching the assassin, no, she corrected herself, assassin of the cross reach for the pair of katars dangling by his waist. They looked awfully sharp, the way he flashed them in the sunlight with deliberate slowness.

It was at this point that the priestess decided that this assassin wanted little to do with her, and she couldn't help but to wonder why he seemed grumpy. After all, she was simple asking for directions to this thing called the "Saber" guild that she was suppose to get to a quarter of an hour ago.

Geffen was a nice city, Eve supposed, but it was difficult to find a random by passer that doesn't have his or her nose stuck in a book...

"Two."

Indeed, in times like this, choices such as "run" and "scream" seemed extremely attractive, except Eve did promise him to be there. Him being Vash, the guild master of Sabre who had decided Eve would be a find addition to the guild, in that bright and sunny day barely a week ago (her fellow church members had all suddenly found something very important that they had to attend to and disappeared through the side doors as soon as Vash stepped into the front gates of Prontera church).

The priestess supposed it had something to do with the guild's reputation of running out of priests and priestesses at an alarming rate, or of the rumor that any priest recruited by Sabre usually ended in the infirmary in Prontera within a week.

But rumors where just rumors, the servant of God wasn't about to turn someone in need away just because of a few rumors. The self righteousness had had been bashed into her skull from years of priest training told her just that, at that fateful moment that she agreed to be recruited.

"Three doors down from the Mage's academy, beside the jacaranda tree" said the champion (who was almost in tears when Eve agreed.) "You can't miss it."

And there she was, doing exactly what she "can't" do. Without doubt, she was standing in front of a door, with the overhanging jacaranda branch happily peppering purple hued flowers down on her head. The problem, though, came in the form of an assassin of the cross, who had harshly told her something on the lines of "I don't know what you're talking about", and "get lost" when she asked him of Sabre's existence.

"Three"

Eve took a step back, then another, eyeing the katars that were now tightly strapped onto the assassin's arm. It seemed that her day officially sucked, and if she didn't "get lost", there would be a great deal of chaos and bloodshed. Then…

"Evelyn Serephen?"

The assassin of the cross stopped in midstride, smug look suddenly melting into annoyance. He turned around to the champion, guild master of the Sabre, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, inches behind him and in front of the door.

"Vash!" exclaimed the priestess he was about to pleasurably mangle.

"I see you have become affable with our guild assassin." Vash said cheerfully. "That's Dante there."

Eve thought 'affable' wasn't so accurate a word to describe the situation, though she chose not to voice her opinion.

"Come on, I'll show you the guild base" said the champion, opening the door for the priestess.

"Welcome to Sabre."

* * *

"She's useless!" A loud, slightly arrogant voice belonging to a certain assassin of the cross announced in the Geffen taverns. A few hours after the priestess' arrival, he had managed to drag his leader down to the taverns (it's pass midday, thus socially acceptable to be drunk) to discuss a few issues. "Did you see her back then? I was about to _kill_ her, and she just stood there."

Vash placed down his mug, the word 'kill' attracted the attention of a few heads (mainly mages) around the tavern. He smiled at them to assure none of them were about to succumb to death in the soon future.

"We need a priest." He shrugged.

Dante glared at him, then at the heads turned heads at the general direction of their table, showering each with a silent death threat. It was reasonable scary, when putting an assassin with 'annoyed' writing on his face with a death threat.

"No we don't." he replied.

"We do, every guild need priests to function."

"We function perfectly well without one, you fill a priest's role perfectly fine."

Vash didn't know whether he should take that particular comment as an insult or flatter, so he decided not to take notice of it. "Not as efficiently as someone trained in the healing arts. Give her a chance."

"Already did"

"Dante." Vash said, exasperated. "We've already gone through this more than once, I'm not about to change my decision."

The assassin gave his leader a long look. "It's either her, or me."

The look Vash returned was of equal intensity. "There are plenty of assassins that wanted to part of the Sabre," he said steadily. "But no other priest after what you did to the last few we recruited."

* * *

Sabre was a fairly new guild in Geffen. Due to the general housing issues that was spreading through Ruin Midgard like wild fire, the guild had located its base near the Mages' Academy. A daring move, one must say, if not stupid and desperate. Living next to a bunch of novice mages was very similar to living next a manufacturer of weapons of mass destruction.

From time to time, various uncontrolled, colorful elemental bolts would descent from the heavens, obliterating much of the roof and cause panic through out the guild house.

This, of course was not known to the priestess, Evelyn as she wander aimlessly in the two storied building. Vash had helpfully showed her around, after introducing her to the rest of the guild.

A cozy little group, the champion had described it, and Eve met most of them on her first day…

A wizard who threw lightning bolts at her when she accidentally barged into his room, mistaking it for the rest room (two doors down the corridor, to the left, the orange one, Vash had instructed). It was probably her fault, though Eve blamed it furiously on her lack of sense of direction and her inability to tell her right from her left. ("Oh don't worry, everyone makes mistakes." Vash had tried to comfort the shaken priestess. "The wizard's Shane by the way, he doesn't mean any harm, he just doesn't like anyone.")

A stalker who appeared behind her as she was walking out the rest room, leaving her a bright crimson and wondering if he had been with her the whole time she was in the rest room. (I'm sure Raye wasn't peeping on you," explained Vash. "I mean, he could have _undressed_ you in a blink of eye if he wanted to." Then, seeing the worried expression on Eve's face, he added. "Don't worry, he doesn't do it often.")

Then there was Dante, the assassin cross, who largely stayed away from Eve.

It was all a tad too cozy for comfort, really.

Eve had lingered in the hall for a good part of the day, after unpacking her belongings and familiarizing herself with the building (Incase she had another Shane accident).

Vash was out with Dante, Dante didn't like her, Shane didn't like anyone. Which left Raye, though Eve didn't want to risk being undressed. So by midday, the priestess was incredibly bored and had marched toward the general direction of the kitchen.

The cupboards where devoid of anything that resembled food, Eve opened the fridge whilst wandering vaguely what those people did for food.

It was empty, aside from five very small, opaque bottles that largely resembled fruit juice. She took one, contents swishing loudly as she rocked the bottle. It was when she began to pour some of the stuff out when a voice from somewhere behind her said-

"You don't want to do that."

Eve did the one logical thing then, which was to scream- in surprise, and in the process dropping the juice bottle.

She leapt aside in time to avoid shards of glass and the contents of the bottle as it exploded on contact with the marble floor. The spilt liquid was green, and sizzled loudly, producing a lot of steam. When the white smoke cleared, there was a large hole on the floor where the liquid had made contact.

"That's Dante's poison bottles," The voice behind her said rather calmly, it belonged to the stalker, Raye. "He keeps it there incase it went off and turned into something weird."

Eve didn't bother asking what could become of deadly poisons if kept out of the fridge, she was really too shocked to say anything.

"Just, beware of the bottles in this place." Raye continued.

Lesson learnt.

* * *

**End of chapter 1- beware of bottles

* * *

**

**AN: **Well, this is my attempt at humor, not sure if you find it funny at all but that's my best shot at it.

Plenty of thanks to Anonymoussi and Mikasu who reviewed "no place in heaven or hell", I've decided to take it off however for the time being until I'm ready to have another go at angst on first person narrative (probably not, for a long time… shudders).

RicePaper


	2. Holes and all that followed

**Disclamer: **I don't own Ragnarok

* * *

**Chapter 2 – Holes and all that followed

* * *

**

"There's a hole in the kitchen," Vash commented off handedly during dinner that night (Home made dinner, courtesy of Eve who cooked and Raye who went grocery shopping). Dante hadn't turned up, neither had the wizard.

Eve blushed crimson at the mentioning of this. "I… um…mistook one of the deadly poison bottles for juice."

"Oh," said Vash.

They ate the rest of dinner without further comments on the subject.

Raye offered to clean up after they had eaten, and Vash said he'd go talk to Dante about labeling his bottles.

"Could you take dinner up for Shane?" The champion asked. "That guy forgets to eat when he's working."

The priestess paled slightly as various images of bolts raining down on her acrossed her mind. Though moments later, she found herself balancing a tray in one hand and standing in front of the room with the purple door. She knocked tentatively, thanking God that the door hadn't been anointed with lightning or something scary. There was no reply however. Slowly, Eve turned the door knob, hoping the wizard hadn't rolled over and died when no one was watching.

The room consisted of a bed and a chair against a table, which the wizard was leaning on. A pile of books stacked on the floor almost reaching the ceiling. (Eve wondered briefly why they hadn't toppled down and killed him) She approached the black clad wizard slowly, fearing fast movements would send scary things hurling at her.

To her great surprise, Shane didn't move, in fact, he was asleep. Eve moved a bunch of scrolls to make room for the tray, and miraculously not waking him. He didn't seem so scary when he's not crackling with lightning, Eve noted, his features were incredible pale, a mark of the Geffenian, either that, or because he never left his room. Which gave him a thin frame and possible a lack of vitamin D.

Not wanting to disturb him, Eve went out quietly. Raye was behind her when she was closing the purple door.

"You actually went in," he said, in the casual Raye manner.

Eve clamped a hand on her mouth to prevent herself from screaming, which would wake Shane and therefore shortening her life. She still hasn't managed to accustom herself to Raye's tendency to appear randomly from behind.

"Raye!" she hissed. "Can you _not _do that?!"

"Do what?"

"_That_!"

The stalker raised an eyebrow in reply, Eve gave up and headed down the stairs.

"Oh," he added, as a matter of factly. "Dante's down there, Vash's lecturing him on the general topic of bottles."

Eve frowned. "Was Dante mad at me for breaking the bottle?"

"Probably," Raye replied. "He didn't like you to begin with."

"Why?"

Raye shrugged. "It's a Dante thing."

* * *

"There's a hole in the roof." Dante appeared over breakfast the next morning, to prove his point; he bore a stain mark from water on his left shoulder. Eve remembered it had rained the night before. 

Personally, Vash though an awful lot of holes had appeared in the guild base in the past few days. Apart from the kitchen and Dante's room, there was also one in his own room, left when one of his spirit balls went nuts and half blew the walls off. Creating a portal between his room and Raye's next door.. It seemed fine for Raye thought, but it unnerved Vash a little when Raye's daggers would suddenly fly into his room for no apparent reason.

"We'll get it fixed," he replied, cutting into his pancakes .

"Anyone for seconds?" Eve appeared through the kitchen entrance.

Everyone did, including Dante.

He remembered to return to the topic though, after a second round of food has been passed around.

"When's the repair going to happen?" He asked.

"A couple of days," Vash replied. "Move into the spare room for the time being."

"Spare room?"

"Yeah."

"The one with the door with red and green crosses?"

"Yep."

"Next to the priest's room?"

"un- huh."

"To hell with that."

It seemed that Dante really didn't like her, Eve thought as she was gathering dishes after breakfast. (She left out a plate outside Shane's room, upon finding the plate from last night empty). Or, he just didn't like the red and green crosses.

* * *

Dante moved into the room, which had the door with red and green crosses two days later, after a storm broke out the night before. He appeared that morning in one of Vash's champion garb (Eve thought it was rather nice of Vash to lend out his suit, since Dante's soaked up with water from the rain) announcing he needed a room change. Vash smiled cheerfully and Raye laughed in Dante's face. 

Dante then swore he would kill the stalker if he didn't shut up, in response, Raye rose to the challenge. Vash interfered as daggers began to fly dangerously across the table.

Overall, it had been a chaotic morning. But the poor priestess had no idea what came that night, would be much worse.

* * *

As far as Eve was concerned, being in bed on a rainy night was a wonderful thing, curling with her back against the wall, hugging her blanket as the constant drizzle luring her slowly into sleep. 

It was very much warm and fuzzy until something big and heavy plonked next to her in the darkness. It didn't manage to jolt her into wakefulness, though and at first the priestess thought she must be dreaming. To make sure she was, Eve opened a sleepy eye.

To her great dismay, this was no dream.

It was a nightmare.

This very nightmare took form of a person, who was centimeters away from her and mumbling something incoherently. _Sleep talking?_ The curious thought only flashed across her for a fraction of a second though, before the rest of her senses kicked in, hard.

Several things happened at this point.

The sound was screaming which abruptly broke out of the room was probably loud enough to wake half the undeads in Glastheim.

She did this for a second or two before she ran out of breath and realized there was little response from bundle next to her. So it was at this point that Eve did the only sensible thing she could thing of.

She kicked the bundle.

It rolled once, before going over the side of the bed and landing with a heavy thump.

Several other things occurred after that (kind of the aftershock in an earthquake, but not really). A yelp was heard from the bundle on the floor (that seemed to have finally woken up), before the door to her room slammed open so hard that it smashed into the wall behind it and left a dent. A very flustered looking champion stood at the doorway in a set of pyjamas decorated with green and yellow teddy and a look of utter confusion on his face.

Raye appeared at the scene with a lantern moments later, and very calmly, witnessing Dante sitting very dazed on the floor next to the bed, and Eve at the corner hugging sheets around her, a pale blue _Ruwach_ spinning placidly about her.

* * *

"I went into the wrong room." 

It was the only thing Dante said for the whole night as the four sat in the kitchen, sipping on coffee.

"I thought passing the assassin test required brains." Raye commented acidly.

Vash interfered before more daggers began flying across the room.

"We'll get that roof fixed first thing in the morning."

* * *

**End of chapter 2 – Holes and all that followed

* * *

**

**AN: **This little fic's finally on its ways, with much stumbling and bruising. Hopefully I'll get it to flow better in the later chapters.

And of course, thanks for everyone's support on chapter one.

A note on character names (since Rasengan-to-teh-balls commented): I didn't actually make up the names Evelyn and Dante, A friend of mine (Kai) did over a relatively vague conversation on msn ("I need two names!! Girl and guy right now!").


	3. Near death experience

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Ragnarok online

* * *

**Chapter 3 – Near death experience

* * *

**

Several weeks passed without further incident, which was a miracle. Slowly, but surely, the priestess was adapting to life in the guild. She goes grocery shopping with the stalker from time to time and remembers to sleep with her door locked.

In all, it was good.

But good things rarely last long, not for her anyway.

It began innocently enough with Vash announcing that the Assassin Guild of Morroc was hiring mercenaries.

"The payment is quite substantial, of course." the leader of Sabre added with some exasperation, seeing a lack of enthusiasm from the guild in general. "And considering the repairs that had to be made to the guild base…" He left the sentence hanging.

Eve paled, Dante smirked.

"I-I'll go…" the priestess stammered, after moments of silence.

Vash peered at her. "I don't think you are very suited for 'kill' in general." He replied, though not harshly.

Dante smirked some more. Vash gave the assassin a withering glare.

There was no further discussion on the topic for the remaining duration of dinner.

Eve didn't know how Vash managed, but by next morning, Raye and Dante had both agreed to go. Vash went with the two just incase they tried to kill each other on the job, and suggested firmly that Eve should stay and 'mind the place.'

Probably because her presence tempted daggers to fly, but Vash mercifully omitted that comment.

She ate dinner alone that night and took a tray up for the wizard, noting with concern that he hadn't touched lunch that she brought up. It was quite normal for Shane to miss a meal or two, but to not eat for a few days- Eve didn't think that was too healthy.

Although she was relatively passionate and caring (red-haired-brown-eyed-hug-the –poring type), it was more because she was lonely that made her risk her life and knock on the purple framed door, and even more so when she turned the door knob when no one answered.

Raye had expressed a great deal of concern and lectured her extensively on issues (that were detrimental to one's health) on enter the wizard's room that last time she went in. Whilst wondering out aloud at the same time why in devil's name _anyone_ would go back in there after having lightning bolts chucked at them.

But at least, Eve was glad that she did this time.

For a long minute she stood at the doorway, squinting at the mass of white smoke that poured from the room's interior. It was so thick that it took her moments before she even had bearings of any sort.

By then, she began to notice the figure lying motionless on the floor.

She approached the figure tentatively, sure enough; the wizard was lying with his back to her. _Fallen asleep on the floor and slid off the chair?_ It was a simple enough explanation, but simple explanations rarely works and it was of no exception in this case.

Scrambling on all fours, she approached him with caution, when the wizard did not respond, the priest rocked him gently. Surely he would not chuck a fit (and thunder bolts) at her for trying to prevent him from catching a cold sleeping on the ground?

But, no, no response.

She rocked him harder, at the same time trying to clear the smoke from her vision.

Still, there was no response.

Oh crud.

She turned him onto his back, the wizard rolled over like a dead phen. Eerily still, improperly still.

Eve reached a trembling hand to his face.

Not breathing.

Ok.

Sweating trickled down the side of her face as her mind raced through the stash of possibly spells she should use. It finally came to rest on a single possibility- just a possibility at that point due to her lack of experience with that spell because she never had to use it in the relatively peaceful city of Prontera.

Eve grappled at the pouch that dangled from the side of her waist. Ignoring the shards of blue gem that bit into her palm as she crushed it (surely there were other ways to activate a gem, but since all calm and logic had flown out of the window by then, we will not comment on her rather bizarre technique which eventually lead to extensive bleeding of whatever body part she used to crush the gem with).

Anyway, white light began to surround the hand that held the gem as Eve traced signs in the air with it. A quick chant escaped her lips and she firmly pushed the glowing ball of light into the wizard's chest. It grew considerably brighter until the room was filled with its brilliance.

_Resurrection_

His chest heaved as Shane gasped. It was a rather appropriate time to cry with relief, Eve thought grimly, except she was too exhausted to do even that (not so much due to the spell, more likely because she hyped herself out with all that freaking.)

But that's beside the point.

* * *

Eve spent the rest of the night on the single chair in Shane's room, incase the wizard found an excuse to die again. Though she must have fallen asleep at some point, because when the priestess opened her eyes again, she herself on the floor (slid off the chair) with the sunlight in her face. 

Rolling onto her back, she glanced at the general position of the bed. A pair of very golden eyes met hers and she was content enough to stare at them for a while, whilst giving herself the time to fully wake up. It occurred to her that she had no idea what colored eyes the wizard had. (Possibly because every time she saw him, he was either dying, or asleep, or chucking lightning bolts at her)

It took her awhile before realizing that she was staring, and it was rather a rather rude thing to stare (together with other things.)

"Uh…" she began, awkwardly.

Shane stopped staring at the priestess, and promptly turned his back on her.

But just as he did so, Eve distinctively heard the wizard mutter a soft…

"Thanks."

* * *

**End of chapter 3- Near death experience**

**

* * *

**

AN: The site refused to let me upload this chapter for some very odd reason for almost a week (and still doesn't)... But I managed to export the last chapter and change the contents... hopefully it doesn't turn out to be weird. simmers quietly to self

Anyways! Lots of thanks to everyone who reviewed and thumbs up to everyone who cracked a smile!

Cheers

RicePaper


	4. Sabre

**Disclaimer: **I don't own RO

* * *

**Chapter 4-Sabre

* * *

**

Sleeping on the floor was detrimental to one's health. Sleeping on the floor in _Shane_'s room, with the door _ajar_ generated suicidal thoughts.

Eve rubbed absently at a smear of flour that caked firmly on her cheek, groaning, her back felt like it had been trampled on by a horde of Larva Golems. But that was the least of her concerns, the very least.

The sound of running shower stopped abruptly upstairs. She groaned some more, any time now, the source of her headache would appear.

The oven door creaked open, out came the thick, sweet aroma of baked muffins. Some where upstairs, came pounding foot steps. A distinct, thunderous thump as the said person descended stairs four at a time.

The floor was going to accommodate more holes, Eve was sure of it, looking suspiciously at the trembling wooden boards that shuddered with each thumping step. The beams supporting the roof would snap and the walls would crack, crumble and-

"Banana muffins!"

Eve twitched, a figure had appeared at the entrance of her kitchen. Young, male, over sized shirt, towering height. The latter being more noticeable since he now stood centimeters away from her, peering over her head and gazing with a look of absolute adoration at the tray of muffins.

A drop of water dripped from his still damp hair and splattered onto the marble floor. Eve closed her eyes, her head was throbbing very, very painfully.

* * *

Eve watched with some sort of horrid awe as the knight, Gaven Lazari downed baked goods two at a time. She was _not_ going to have a good time explaining to Vash why muffins might be the cause of the knight's sudden death, the way he seemed to swallow them without chewing. 

She vaguely recalled the guild leader telling her something about an absent knight when he first showed her around the guild base. "Gaven's out investigating a case near Ghlastheim"- those were his exact word. _Investigating,_ she had automatically presumed a calm, serious man (since most of the guild tends to show little/no emotions at the norm). But no-not _this! _Eve whimpered to herself, she always knew leaving doors unlocked was _bad, _But never this hazardous.

"I'm home!"

The first time he appeared before her was at the entrance to Shane's room, the door being slammed open and denting the wall. The knight had exclaimed in a most enthusiastic, hyperactive voice, announcing his arrival.

Silence had ensured, whilst the priestess stared at the man, shining amour, glistering claymore and all, with her mouth hanging open.

In response, the blond haired knight gazed at her position on the floor, and then glanced toward Shane on the bed, this repeated for a few times before a look of realization dawned on the knight's face.

"Oh," He had said, scratching at the back of his head. "Was I interrupting something?"

Eve twitched visibly then, Shane ignored him altogether.

"I… see." he had nodded as though in agreement, despite the lack of response at his previous question. "I'll leave you two to it, then!"

Two short sentences and the knight disappeared from view, as suddenly as he had come.

For once in her life, Eve wished Shane would cast his _Jupiter_ _thunder_ on her.

* * *

"I'll have you know _nothing _happened up there." She tried, sitting down across from the knight who was currently wolfing down breakfast at an alarming speed; it was a good start, at least. 

He looked up from a half eaten muffin, if thought of any kind was going through his head, Eve couldn't tell. He looked... well, blank.

The priestess sweat dropped.

"You know…from before." She added, in a feeble attempt to explain.

The blank look ensued.

"H-he was… I-I thought…Having a seizure or something. S-So I stayed back and… and… yeah!" She was a little flustered (just a little), her hand flapped in the air for emphasis. "So…it wasn't like anything was going on between him and me. And-and-"

Things were deteriorating quite rapidly, she noticed.

"Wes, I wo" He suddenly replied, mumbling through a mouthful of pastry.

Eve blinked.

He swallowed thoughtfully. "I said I know. It's not like Shane would bed a girl anyway."

Eve blinked some more. That did not sound right. It didn't.

"Not that…" the knight quickly added, seeing the skeptical look on the priestess' face. "N-not that he would bed a guy."

Eve resisted the temptation to cover her face and groan. But, no, groaning would induce further attempts to explain, which would therefore make things sound much, much worse.

Plastering a vague smile on her face, the priestess nodded, weakly.

* * *

Moments after breakfast, the knight known as Gaven was standing inside the room with the purple framed door and watching the wizard read a book (he had offered to clean up after breakfast, but after dropping two dishes in a short period of five minutes, Eve banished him from the vicinity of her kitchen forever). 

"So, what happened?" he asked, leaning comfortably against the side of the desk. The fact that none of Shane's elemental bolts had descended upon him for entering _the_ room would have left the rest of the guild in awe.

The wizard flicked a page in the book he was reading, and ignored the question altogether.

It was a well known thing that getting Shane to talk was like pulling teeth, but considerably more painful. But Gaven had known the wizard for long enough to not take offence in his friend's general lack of response, and besides, Shane was probably doing something weird and suicidal. Gaven wasn't quite sure he wanted to know about it after all.

"So… um," he tried again, sitting down onto the chair. Staying quiet because he was not being spoken to simply wasn't his thing. The knight had been known to rant endlessly to his pecopeco (Coo) in the past （The end result being him flicked off the bird's back in his steed's stressed annoyance.）.

"Is there a reason why you are here?" the wizard questioned quietly.

"I wanted to…uh… talk about this morning."

The golden eyes flickered behind the book, Gaven was sure of it.

He blanched.

"About the priestess, actually." He stammered. "No-I-I wasn't implying you bedded her!"

Crackling of lightning suddenly filled the air.

Gaven leapt from his seat.

"I mean it!" He screeched. "Nothing naughty!"

"And what do you wish to know?"

The crackling hadn't stopped, Gaven swallowed nervously.

"What do you think of her joining the guild?" he asked in a hurry.

Pools of liquid ember looked up, static vanished from the air, Gaven was quite happy to note that.

"It wasn't a wise decision on her part."

"Yes, as I thought…" Gaven said, thoughtful. "It's just too odd, that she managed to survive for this long, most priest end in the infirmary in two… weeks, three at the most."

The wizard remained quiet.

"It's not like Dante to do nothing, with his oh-I-hate-priest attitude." Gaven scratched his neck. "Why does he go nutter at the sight of priests anyway?"

"I suspect it had something to do with the way he came to being," came the reply.

Gaven looked generally blank. "Like…? I thought births generally involved a woman and babies and…other things." He looked on thoughtfully. "It's too bad you couldn't just ask Dante what his problem was… Vash would get mad, after him making up that rule not letting people ask about other's pasts and all. Its no wonder he couldn't get priests to join, I wouldn't if I was a priest."

Shane flicked to another page of his book, ignoring the knight's rants.

It was the way of Sabre, no one asked of other's past. After all, the past is history, and it had little to do with determining the future.

* * *

**End of chapter 4- Sabre

* * *

**

AN: I know I know, it's taken me four chapters to introduce the whole guild. I spent more of last week procrastinating, rather than typing this up because I seriously considered omitting this chapter due to the general lack of things happening. But don't be disheartened, I'll get back to the main plot in the next update.

-RicePaper


	5. Assassins and Alehouse

**Disclaimer: **I don't own RO

* * *

**Chapter 5- Assassin and Alehouse

* * *

**

One does not walk through the town of Morroc unaccompanied at night, unless they were suffering from an acute case of mental retardation, or alcohol poisoning.

Raye had neither, but being stalker made him an exception to the rule. It was never a good idea to mug a stalker, not one who looked as though he'd gut the next person who had the misfortune of stumbling into his path.

It was raining. It almost never rained in Morroc, but when it did, the dust that had gathered from the lack of moisture settled, making anything and everything a muddy cesspool. That, whilst not being the main reason, played a part in his annoyance. His stalker's uniform was a bitch to clean, after all. It had taken several rinses to get the blood out the trickier parts of his garb, and along the fur trimming. But it was done, and the blood bath from the previous day (concerning group of people who was unlucky enough to have ticked off the assassins guild) quickly forgotten.

The door of the seedy looking bar resisted a little as he pushed against it, might have gotten caught on something. Raye spent no time sending it flying with a well aimed kick. On the other side, some guy sprawled on the floor, knocked unconscious by the wooden frame.

An assassin cross looked up, eyes red and fist clenched. That might have been a frightening sight, though Raye was in no particular mood to deal with the idiot who had gotten himself roaring drunk three nights in a row (since when was he in a good mood dealing with Dante anyway?)

"We're leaving." He said, nonchalantly.

Dante made a vague sort of noise and reached for the glass, it shattered as a thrown dagger impacted on it, sending shards of sharp glass flying.

"Fuck!" It got the assassin's attention, at least. Dante leapt up. For the next few seconds, he swayed at the same spot, before his eyes glazed over and he drop back down on the wooden bench. Several people turned to see what the commotion was about, but soon lost their interest. It had happened three nights in a row, after all and most people got over it by then.

* * *

Vash looked up from his pile of paperwork in the makeshift living room of the inn, as a soaked through and muddy stalker came in, dragging behind an equally soaked and muddy assassin cross by the length of his scarf. 

"I hope you're paying for the dry cleaning." The stalker said, as he dumped the unconscious assassin cross against the nearest wall.

"Again?" The champion raised an eye brow to Dante, sounding incredulous.

Raye shrugged, from the corner of the room, Dante made a peculiar sort of noise and retched.

They watched the assassin through his task of emptying out the contents of his stomach with disinterest. Vash sighed, Raye rolled his eyes.

"Depression, maybe?" The champion asked the stalker sullenly.

"Beats me."

"Why else would anyone poison their liver with alcohol on a daily basis?" Vash wasn't about to let the topic drop, apparently. Raye sighed inwardly; he was wet and muddy. The topic of alcohol, assassin and livers interested him little.

"Prospect for going back to the priest, maybe." He replied, hoping Vash would shut up and let him go.

"You think?"

"Probably," Raye shrugged, uncommitted. "He never took the idea of priests in the guild too well."

Vash frowned, a while ago he had discussed with Shane why that was the case. And concluded it must've been some sort of allergy, like bee sting. The quiet wizard had replied that priests weren't a well studied source of allogen and that his analysis was highly unlikely.

The rest of Shane's theory made little sense to the champion, little being none at all. Vash wisely chose not to confer the case any further. So the reason why Dante hated priests remained a year long mystery that eventually gathered dust and was largely forgotten, only to be raised sporadically when new priests were recruited into the guild.

"Can I, go?" Raye's voice brought Sabre's grand commander into the present, where the stalker was standing before him looking slightly disgruntled.

Vash nodded quickly in reply.

Without another word, Raye turned and left. Leaving the champion lost in his thoughts.

* * *

Dante woke up the next day with a splitting headache, and Raye's unsympathetic smirk was not the most attractive thing to wake up to. 

"We're leaving." The stalker said, repeating the exact phase from the night before (unless it happened to be insult, it seemed Raye never had much to say to the assassin).

The assassin cross mumbled something inaudible under his breath and rolled over. Raye looked on impassively, fingering the shaper of his daggers and considering whether he should use it to get Dante's attention. It would cause ghastly damage to the said person, of course. Vash would have to pay for the extra medical bills, and therefore would complain bitterly (Raye decided it wasn't worth it at this point, not after he had walked through mud and rain to drag the assassin back just to shut Vash up).

He settled with leaving the assassin cross be, on the floor. Dante could find his own way back to Geffen, for all he cared.

* * *

Eve thought it was odd, upon waking to the faint aroma of bakery from downstairs. Because (with all due respect) Gaven couldn't have been able to tell the difference between the oven and the sink, let alone cook. 

She arrived at the kitchen to find Shane, in full wizard's uniform with the addition of an apron, stuffing a large pie with cut up bits of apples. From the scent whiffing out of the oven, another was already baking.

She gaped at the wizard for a while before someone (Gaven) cheerfully yelled something that resembled 'food' and 'hooray' from the bedrooms upstairs. Seconds later, the knight appeared behind Eve. Even with his uncanny ability to overlook everything else at the sight of food, Gaven 's reaction seeing Shane in an apron was no less than Eve's.

Shane glanced at them both as they stared, and went back to the task at hand.

Then, the door of the front entrance burst open. Revealing the Vash trio in full glory, flying cloaks and all. This image lasted for the next few seconds before all of them simultaneously spotted a wizard in the kitchen.

"Huh." Raye was the first to comment.

Of course this showed little implication, and Vash felt the need to add something. Sadly, despite all his knowledge of running a guild, he couldn't come up with anything particularly relevant to this situation. This then left Dante, to express the amazement and shock they all _must_ have felt at this particular moment.

The assassin cross made another retching sort of noise (similar to the one from the previous night), before disappearing up the stairs, where the sound of throwing up could clearly be heard.

The rest of the guild stood in awkward silence, until Gaven gave another overly cheerful yell.

"Yay! Apple pie!"

* * *

**End of Chapter 5- Assassin and Alehouse

* * *

**

AN: I fail at plots. I'm sure something that resembled a plot was supposed to happen this chapter, but it didn't. Though it's amusing to see some Dante torturing, no?

Dante: I don't recall giving you permission to post this scene. -Katars flashing dangerously-

o.O

-RicePaper


	6. Hello to the world

**Disclaimer:**I don't own RO

* * *

**Chapter 6- Hello to the world**

* * *

She suspected at some point that the return of the assassin cross meant the beginning of her misery. But never would she have suspected the possibility that the two of them would be stuck in the same party on the same day and sent out on some vague, incomprehensive mission in the middle of nowhere. 

"So what happened?"

It all began with a simple, innocent question that Eve wished (as she dodged a flying arrow from a Kobold archer that narrowly missed her head) she never asked a short while after breakfast. The recipient of the question (a very irked looking assassin cross) had glared at her coldly, causing her to flinch in her seat.

If the conversation had ended there, the day would have passed quietly, spent idling around the guild base (instead of being trampled by half a million Kobolds pouring out of nowhere). Sadly (for her anyway), the silence was quickly interrupted by the smug voice of a stalker, who was smirking over the glimmering surface of a polished dagger.

"He was drunk." He said as-a-matter-of-factly.

The stare of utter hatred shifted rapidly from the priestess to the thief class.

"How?" Her look was incredulous. And more importantly, why? There was little the priestess could do to link a trip to the Assassin's guild (involving shiny sharp things and blood) with the condition that was quite apparently alcoholic in nature.

Surprisingly, the knight, Gaven was the first to confront the object of her recent puzzlement.

"Ah yes," he sighed somberly. "I always get that when those Kafras warp me."

The blank look on the priestess's face ensured, obviously the connection between Kafras, Assassin guilds and being drunk simply didn't happen in her head. For one thing, Vash open the warp portal to Morroc for them (to save zeny), and so Kafras were effectively uninvolved in the whole affair.

Guild conversation was seriously suffering, for whatever reason.

"They never listen when I tell them to go easy." From the other end of the table, Gaven continued his one sided conversation, which had strayed a great distance away from the main topic. "Did you know what they did to me last time I told them to warm me back to Geffen? They took me to Coal Mines! Coal mines! (his voice elevated an octave) Can you believe it? The top of Mt Mjolnir! It took me five days to get back to Prontera!"

Eve had the feeling that everyone stopped listening by now. Dante went back to his brooding, Vash found something amusing from outside the window. Raye busied himself with the polishing and Shane was deeply absorbed in some book.

"Koo (Gaven's pecopeco) lost tail feathers to one of those Petite things, he wasn't happy about it. I had to listen to him complain about it all the way down…and the client just disappeared on me when I finally got to his place, DISAPPEARED, after I spent all that time getting there and-and-.

"What do you mean, disappeared?" Vash interrupted, before Gaven became hysterical and broke something.

"You know.. disappeared." Gaven said patiently, as if Vash failed to comprehend simple vocabulary. "Like.. poof."

The guild master stared, the silence slowly became uncomfortable. Eve hoped Gaven would elaborate, for his own sake. Preferably _before_ walls began exploding on impact of _Asura_ and similar spells.

He did, fortunately. "They all left when I got there, the house was empty."

"Did you ask around?"

"Well…" Gaven said.

"Well?" Vash asked.

"The place was sort of in the middle of nowhere…"

"And?"

"And the client was a bit of a social retard."

"So?"

"So…"

"So you left." Vash finished for him. "With out bothering to figure out what happened to the client."

"But I though…"

""People don't sporadically disappear," Vash sighed, exasperated (at this point, Gaven wondered if his guild leader had mind reading abilities). "You need to go back there."

"But-" The knight began to protest.

"No buts." Vash said firmly.

Dante smirked from his corner. Except that turned out to be very inappropriate at the time, because the next moment Vash was on the assassin like a Lunatic on carrot juice.

"You're going with him." He said.

"What?" The reply from Dante was somewhat predictable, and topped with disbelief.

"You heard me."

"But-" The assassin cross began to protest.

The look from Sabre's guild leader was withering. "Show Gaven around, you know the way around Glastheim better than he does, since you're from there." ("What?! From Glastheim?" Gaven began spluttering at this point. "How can anyone be from Glastheim??")

The murderous stare from the assassin prevented further questioning from the rest of the guild. It was then Vash turned toward the priestess.

"Say, Eve." He said casually. Eve froze. "Can you go with them? To keep an eye out for things?"

* * *

Eve thought 'keeping an eye out for things' had been a very badly idea on Vash part. Particularly when the subject she was supposed to be keeping an eye out for was an assassin that sent her threatening glances every five minutes, and a knight who got lost in even shorter timely intervals. It was fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on how one views the situation) that the priestess was far too occupied for the majority of the trip with monsters they encountered on the way, whom (apparently) had nothing in their heads except straight 'kill' and 'eat' . 

The axe wielding Kobold charged, shrieking insanely at the top of its lungs and swinging its weapon in random wide arcs. But that didn't last long because the axe flew off all of a sudden, and so was clawed paw holding the said weapon. The Kobold wielder stared at the bloody stump of its arm with utter confusion. Behind it, the assassin cross flicked his katared wrist with expertise and ended the creature's bewilderment.

Eve wasn't doing so well, on the other hand. A severed head of a blue haired monster clung on, despite her attempt at detaching it from the edge of her priest garb. Beating at it with the butt of her staff effectively did nothing, other that eliciting a stream of deep throated growl from the detached skull.

Not far from her, a flustered looking knight sent several of the Kobolds that were apparently trying to dog pile him _en mass_ back with a _Bowling Bash_. Several flew and thudded onto the ground next to Dante, who were fighting off a mob of his own.

"There's too many!" Gaven yelped, backhanding one that lunged at him from the behind.

Eve agreed. There was little response from the assassin cross in general. But the next minute, Kobolds that had previously surrounded Dante howled in frustration as he simply disappeared into thin air.

But even with brain size of a pea, it didn't take the monsters much to notice the next nearest target.

Eve blanched, the Kobolds charged at her in union.

It was when the priestess decided she was going to die a bloody and painful death that a sudden crunching sound erupted from beneath the charging mob, followed by a violent explosion of spikes in various size and shapes. The effect was obvious, howls of triumph was quickly replaced by screams of agony as monsters were effectively de-limbed and beheaded.

Dante reappeared moments later as whatever survived the _Gimtooth_ fled in terror, and looking extremely smug.

Eve trembled uncontrollably, amongst blood stained daisies.

* * *

**End of chapter 6- Hello to the world**

* * *

An: Filler chapters are really a pain to write , hopfully this chapter the last of my rants before going on to the main plot (Oh, so there was a main plot?!)Apologies for the update delays, procrastination is very enjoyable at times. 

-RicePaper


	7. Separated

**Disclaimer:** I do not own RO

**AN:** Re-wrote the chapter because it sucked, alot. Hopefully its better now since the content was changed.

* * *

**Chapter 7- Separated**

* * *

"Why did you become a priest?" 

The priestess in question could only stare back blankly in reply. Not many had asked her the same question. Not many being none at all. And it was particularly queer when that question came from the one person she was sure to have hated her guts for reasons she had yet to fathom.

Dante glared back, regretting his decision to speak almost immediately as an expression devoid of any thought appeared on the priestess' face. They had been sitting in front of the fire for hours, waiting for sunrise so they could finally get out of the godforsaken place. The place being that house they were sent to investigate, which still remained positively client free upon their arrival.

Neither two of his party member have made an attempt to start a conversation all night. Mainly because Eve was busy tending to the last wounds and bruises on the knight. And the knight himself too busy yelping in pain to form a comprehensible sentence.

It wasn't so much because of the lack of conversation that made Dante open his mouth. He enjoyed moments from time to time when his guild mates would actually shut up. But something, like the way the priestess had been frowning in concentration, the way her eyes seem to glaze over, leaving the assassin to wonder whether she had fallen asleep on her feet, every time her fingers glowed green (whoever designed these spells had little taste in colour).

That was irritating, for some odd reason.

"Um-" she uttered, seemingly to have finally found the use of her tongue.

The assassin watched her expectantly, this became a look of annoyance when the priestess said nothing more.

"Because God called you?" Dante snapped. " Because of some stupid obligation you have to aid any idiot that crosses your paths?"

"Dante!" Gaven chided, startled by the assassin's sudden out burst. Whilst Eve stared back in silence,the assassin had let something slip just then, though she couldn't exactly put her finger on what it was.

"You make me sick." Dante huffed, before stalking off.

She could have lived without him telling her that, really. Even if his actions had spoken out aloud in the past few months that she was not one of his favourites. Hearing someone telling her that she made them sick was different.

* * *

They left the house early in the morning, with Dante stalking ahead from the rest of the group and blatantly refusing to speak to anyone. Eve didn't know how the short discussion of priesthood the night before had lead to all this, but she was now sure that the fact she existed was enough to send the assassin cross on a random tantrum. And Dante on a foul mood was a promising start to the return trip of absolute hell. 

And in fact, it was.

Perhaps it was the way Dante prowled on at an inhuman speed, or maybe she was still tried out from all that healing the night before. Eve found herself rapidly loosing sight of the two others (Gaven was on his giant bird, which made him very fast) despite the number of speed spells she cast on herself.

So it was (since she had no sense of direction what so ever) that the priestess found herself lost, and staring at a pair of rusty gates within fifteen minutes of aimless wandering. Beyond, stood the fallen city of Glastheim.

She groaned inwardly. Things deteriorated rather rapidly from there on.

* * *

It was actually Koo (Gaven's pecopeco) that realized _someone_ was missing from their little group. The giant bird warbled loudly for a while, then, as its rider AKA master didn't seem to get the point, stopped abruptly and threw Gaven off its back in the process. 

Of course, anyone would have yelled loudly as they sail through the air. The knight regained contact with the ground again shortly with a terribly loud rattle.

His steed looked at him reproachfully. A small distance away, the assassin cross also stopped in his tracts.

"I think I broke my neck." The knight groaned.

"Shame," Dante approached. "We could arrange a nice funeral for you if you like."

Gaven looked hurt. Koo squawked loudly.

"We could always bury that bird with you." The assassin cross suggested, dodging swiftly as the giant bird took a nip at him. "Or roast it at your funeral."

The knight looked horrified. "You wouldn't!"

Dante shrugged. The Pecopeco squawked again, this time more urgently.

"What is it Koo?" It master was courteous enough to not ignore it this time.

The steed glanced meaningfully behind it, short wings flapping. Two pairs of eyes soon followed in that direction.

"Uh," the knight said uncertainly as he stood up. "Eve?"

* * *

Eve stood panting behind slammed shut door, on the other side; she could hear loud rattling and stamping of hooves. _Abyssmal knight_, the same one that chased her across half the Glastheim grounds with scary pointing things. The next time someone complained they're putting on weight, she'd make sure that they'd hire an Abyssmal knight. 

But all plans of exercise aside, Eve looked found herself glancing with absolute confusion at the interior of the building she had just shut herself in. It was big, for one thing, that, and totally unfamiliar.

Going back out wasn't an option, unless she intended to be trampled by a few tones of demon knight and horse. With that in mind, the priestess carefully made her way across dusty marble floor, the space seem to expand as she walked on. Soon, a hallway stood before her in silence, complete with alters and benches.

_This is…_Her mind worked quickly, trying to remember the map of Glastheim she was made to memorize for an exam back in the Prontera church (whoever set the exam was obviously retarded enough to not be able to come up with anything else).

Of course, if the priestess knew she was standing in the churchyard of Glastheim (now days populated by thousands of rotting corpse) she would have paid more attention. If she had paid more attention to her surroundings, she would have been prepared as sudden rush of cold air popped up behind her, if she was prepared, she might have had the chance to do something before something hard struck her neck.

Then, everything went black.

* * *

**End of chapter 7- Separated**

* * *


	8. Betrayal

**Disclaimer: **I do not own RO

* * *

**Chapter 8- Betrayal**

* * *

Journey of a thousand miles began with concussion.

Waking up to a box sized room was hardly desirable. Bashing one's head against a very _very _low ceiling when one tried to stand up straight was even less so.

A normal person would have been alarmed in her circumstance; after all, she _had_ been out cold for God knows how long – and woken to find herself in some room that smelt like Pecopeco piss. But Eve was a little slow to grasp things at times and she was content to stare at her surrounding with a look devoid of thought (and clutching the already forming bump on her head).

She couldn't see much, for one thing. A quick whisper and some vague hand movements quickly solved that particular dilemma. Though even with the pale blob of blue light spinning about her and lighting up the room, she still couldn't find anything that gave her clues as to where she was.

The roof was very low- even an idiot could tell that by now, she had to bend herself at an awkward angle to maneuver around. There was a desk and a chair, and apparently a bed (which she had woken up on, but it hadn't _felt_ like a bed). And whoever designed the room, was evidently drunk enough to forget the addition of a window.

It was fortunate for her that there _was_ a door (obviously, how else would she have gotten in at the first place). The very door that suddenly creaked very loudly open, causing a blast of cold draught to entered from the dimly lit hallway outside. Though the priestess was far too preoccupied to take much notice of this, her attention was focused entirely on the figure at the doorway.

Her first glance confirmed a humanoid shape, and since priests were generally bred to be positive creatures, Eve was optimist enough to believe someone _nice_ was here to get her.

It wasn't until she glanced at her savior for the second time, that her eyes became semi-permanently glued to the same position, whilst every hair on the back of her neck effectively pricked up in terror. Her frozen fingers twitched once, then began to move frantically as she traced symbols for destruction and light in the air. Priests were taught pathetically few offensive spells, _Holy Light_ being one of them. It was one of those flashy but useless things that no one bothers with unless the situation was desperate

And by some misfortune, Eve seemed to have gotten herself in such a situation, stuck in a four by six by one and a half meter box and staring at something armed with rusty katars and pointy things jutting out of his arms and legs.

She raised her arms to deliver the spell as the thing advanced; it came out as a feeble glow- to her intense dismay, and didn't do much other than knock the creature back a few inches. At this point, Eve began to worry, this rapidly deteriorated as she stepped back enough to feel the cold walls against her back.

The Injustice now stood towering over her, Eve swallowed nervously, eyeing the red eyes that glowed fiercely in the semi- darkness. She was going to die- probably. Wiping a clammy hand against the side of her robe, she began the same spell, being a tad desperate. (if she were to come out of this alive, the teachers of Prontera church would receive a good piece of her mind about spells.)

The Injustice reached out to her, Eve ducked, eyes tightly shut and waited for pain/ blood/ whatever that would surely follow. She felt the coldness of demonic flesh against her arm, a scream caught in her throat and she was content to choke on it for the next few seconds.

"Save your magic," she heard a voice, a male voice, to be exact, raspy from the lack of use.

The priestess opened an eye, and peeked at the monster, who was staring at her. Surely, the voice had to have come from the Injustice (her room had been male-free, last time she checked).

"Huh?" She opened the other eye and stared at the monster that had apparently just talked (the very cold hand was still on her arm, she tried not to make an issue of it)

"The collar halves the power of your spells; you should not waste your magic further."

"Collar?" The priestess uttered like an idiot. The cold hand on her arm loosened. She blinked in confusion, and felt around her neck. Her hand brushed against stone. It was a pretty thick slab of rock, actually and fitted almost perfectly around her neck. Eve frowned, fingers tracing against the intricate patterns engraved into its surface, it glowed warmly against her skin. Yup. Creepy.

Then, Ruwach gave a sigh of boredom and went out altogether.

Caught off guard, Eve panicked fiercely as darkness swallowed her once more. Without much thought; she scrambled for the source of light, which happened to be from the opened door. Of course, she had forgotten that the Injustice was still between her and the door.

Suddenly, she felt those terribly cold hands on her again. Eve froze, looking stupid with one leg in the air. She squinted and looked up at the monster who stared back at her expressionlessly. It was then that she noticed her throat was inches from colliding into one of the many blades sticking out of the Injustice's body.

_He…_ a flash of realization crossed her mind, _if he hadn't…_

Her head would have had a lot of trouble staying on her shoulders, if the Injustice hadn't stopped her.

Her heart pounded in her chest as the monster let her go. And Eve watched, in stunned silence, as the undead slowly lumbered out of her room, closing the door behind him.

* * *

For the next few hours, Eve sat quietly on the chair. She didn't want to crack her skull, bashing it against the ceiling any further. The Injustice visited her from time to time, bringing her food. A feeble ball of blue light always spun around her, relit frequently when they went out, the Injustice, seeing this, brought her a candle during one of his visits. 

So Eve was content to stare at the flame of the candle for a while, during that period of time, several things came to her mind. Dante, Gaven, their locations, her location, the collar, the roof, the Injustice and her sanity, in that order.

Finally, the Injustice came in again. She could tell his eyes worked quite well in the darkness as he lumbered toward her bed (and had no apparent issues with the roof), placing what seemed to be cloth on top of the cover.

"Change," he said simply.

He meant for her to change into the cloths he just laid down, Eve could tell that much. It was a good start, she decided, the fact that she _wasn't_ on the floor with innards hanging out was a _very_ good start. And because it was a very good start, Eve decided to push it a little more.

"What is this place?" she squeaked out, proud that she managed just that.

The monster stopped in his tracts, glanced back and replied. "The cellars of Glastheim church."

That could explain the general lack of windows. The place wasn't meant for storing people. Eve found herself slow digesting the information. (And why on earth would the Glastheim churches equip themselves with cellars with begin with? Though this wasn't so crucial a piece of information for her situation, so she decided to move on.)

"And…who are you?"

"I'm an Injustice." The demon told her slowly, as-a-matter-of-factly.

Eve blanched, floundering. "I mean- like- your name!"

The Injustice looked at her for a while, long enough for Eve to wonder if she had just asked another stupid question.

"Ethrel." He said.

It was unusual, that name, Eve decided. But then, she_ was _having a conversation with a monster, and she was quite sure _that_ didn't really label her as a particular logical and sane individual.

"Ethrel," she began, as casually as she could muster. "Why are you keeping me here?"

Yes, that was the main point, along with other things, like how to get the hell out of this place, and how to find the rest of her guild mate -what if they were hurt? Or worse, eaten? (Though the idea of Dante being hurt or eaten didn't seem very realistic, so she disregarded that thought.)

"I'm not," The Injustice said quietly.

Eve resisted the temptation to groan, and pull out hair. Operation sneak-out-information not working obviously. Sadly, due to a lack of plan B, she could only sit and stare at the monster.

"Then who is?" She ended up saying, somewhat indignantly.

If he had heard her, the Injustice gave no indication of it, but began to lumber out, dragging one leg after the other.

* * *

Eve brought the cloth laid out for her toward the candle light, it seemed much like what thieves usually worn, the same jacket made of tough material. She didn't know why the undead wanted her to dress in it, but unable to find a good enough reason not to (nor was she willing her to risk her innards ticking the demon off), slipped out of her own priest robe and dressed. 

It had a smelt of sand to it, and brought memories of the journeys to the desert city of Morroc livid to her mind. She walked toward the door and knocked on it hesitantly, it open immediately and Ethrel was in the doorway (Though Eve had a sneaking suspicion that he never really left from his post outside her room all that time)

The Injustice glance at her once before turning and beckoned her to follow.

"Where are you taking me?"

Ethrel didn't reply, his back was turned to her. Eve followed quickly, though it wasn't hard to catch up with the undead's steps. The halls were a lot brighter and Eve saw it bore many doors, not unlike that which lead to her room on its walls.

The demon before her showed resemblance to many of the Injustice she had seen in the past, silver hair fell around his face in an unruly manner. He had bore many scars on his back, and was particularly plentiful on his right leg, perhaps it was for that reason that the right leg was not as mobile and dragged behind the other. The scars never healed, Eve saw, but was sewn roughly together with a length of black thread.

They walked quietly for the rest of the way, the hallway grew lighter and eventually opened to what seemed like a chapel, a long unused chapel. A familiar figure sat idly on one of the overturned benches in front of the alter, twirling a pair of daggers in one hand.

Her eyes widened a fraction at the sight of the man in his dark attire.

"Dante!" Eve cried out when she saw the assassin cross, who looked back at her expressionlessly. Her smile was radiant, without realizing. She started toward him, half running, relieved to finally see a familiar face.

Suddenly, in a blur of movement, the pair of daggers the assassin cross had been twirling hurled at Eve, who cried out in surprise. One of the blades clattered noisily against the barrier she had managed to raise in the last second, whilst the other crashed through her _Kyrie Elesion _and imbedded into her arm.

She went down onto one knee as blood seeped through her fingers, where her hand was pressing against the wound. Her eyes wide, betraying a mix of shock, hurt and mostly of all, confusion.

The assassin cross walked over to her, and bent down to the priestess.

"You will learn the arts of the assassin from the Injustice," his voice was impassive. "After three months, I will test you, if you pass the test, I will let you live."

Eve said nothing.

"Take it seriously, Evelyn Serephen" He stood up swiftly, and turned. "No one hears your screams here, not the guild, not your church. Your life depends on your own doings."

With that, he left by the side door of the run down chapel.

Eve gazed after him, bit down forcefully to stop the tears that threatened to fall. Finally, the pain in her arm brought her back to her senses. It hadn't hit anything major, she thought after examining the wound, and the dagger hadn't gone down deeply. Thus, she did something that she normally wouldn't have done. She pull out the blade. For a moment, she was paralysed by the pain that shot through her body. Gritting her teeth, her hand weaved the signs for healing and recovery.

Her magic flowed weakly, but it was enough to close the cut and stop the blood. She tugged at the stone collar once the pain subsided. As always, it stubbornly refused to move.

The Injustice watched her quietly on the side of the altar.

"Well," Eve murmured as she turned back to Ethrel, her voice bounced bitterly off the granite walls. "I guess you're suppose to be giving me some art lessons."

* * *

**End of Chapter 8- Betrayal**

* * *

AN: That was a very long chapter…- vaguely wonders if anyone is still awake-. We're finally done with the filler chapter (like chapter 7, which still sucks, no matter how much poking is done. /fail)

And I sort of agree.. sticking Dante and Eve in the same room isn't all that healthy.

-RicePaper


	9. Learning the rudiments of living

**AN**: Haven't updated this fic for a very long time, if you can't remember who's who, here's a list.

Raye- stalker

Vash- champion

Gaven- knight

Shane- wizard

Dante- assassin cross

Evelyn (Eve)- priest, currently training for assassinhood

Ethrel- … Injustice, currently training Eve for assassinhood

* * *

**Chapter 9 – learning the rudiments of living

* * *

**

_Ah, fuck._

That was Raye's initial thought, which he largely kept to himself since it would be impolite of him to interrupt the guild leader's hollering (about mages and their soon to be demises after he had gotten his hands on them, the amount of swearing puts the combined vocabulary of Raye and Dante to shame)

The reason behind Vash's distraught was quite obvious and took the form of a very large hole in the ceiling, the top floor of the house having just exploded impressively when a large amount of colourfully charged bolts flew into it for no apparent reason. Although Raye rather thought the sight of things exploding around the place had become way too common to get excited about, Vash obviously decided otherwise, and had dashed dangerously up the still swaying stairs.

It wasn't until a few minutes later before the house stopped its tremors. And only when Raye was certain that the roof wasn't about to cave in on his head in the near future that he grudgingly began to make his way to the top floor. _Someone_ had to restrain Vash incase the champion felt the need to commit suicide.

Their sleeping quarters were messy (messy being a gross understatement). Bits of obliterated roof were still finding their way to the floor, and other bits had found it convenient to embed themselves deeply into the frame of various doors.

A maddened cry further down the hall way gave some vague indication that Vash hadn't tried to kill himself yet, though Raye thought it wouldn't be long before the guild leader made an attempt at it, the way Vash was explaining in a colourful language exactly what he thought and would do to the mage's Academy at great length to no one in particular.

At this point, the stalker could _almost_ feel sorry for the little mages who would meet their soon to be demise. Though with another glance at Vash, Raye decided firmly that he'd rather not be in the way when the champion _asura-ed_ the entire Academy to the ground.

* * *

"Slash, don't poke. You wouldn't want to tangle your weapon amongst your opponent's innards"

Eve thought she rather wouldn't too, she imagined it would be very awkward asking someone if they could kindly hand back her dagger because it seemed to be stuck inside one of their body parts.

Of course, she hoped it wouldn't have to come to that. Eve if Dante did ram down her throat (Dante is fairly good at ramming things down other people's throats) the fact that wielding sharp pointy metal things were her only ticket out of the mess, now that her magic had conveniently packed up and left her in some hole to die.

Eve hadn't spend _too_ long in despair though, Ethrel had made sure of that when he began to bombard her with all sorts of essential (and random) information extending from the anatomy of Whispers (whether Whispers had anything resembling anatomy was still questionable) to how to wield daggers. It wasn't long before a healthy amount of said weapon began flying in the dusty chapel.

And with that began the stage of her life where she was being beaten to a pulp. On a daily basis.

Frequently she found herself against the floor in some posture or another; on good days when her vision wasn't swimming so much she was seeing triples of everything she often found Ethrel watching her when he thought she hadn't noticed. She often wondered what went on in the demon's mind (for a split of a second anyway before some bit of her inevitably cussed at her for attention).

Then one day, her curiosity got the better of her. As the thick layer of dust settled from the sparring match between her and Ethrel had (which ended with her flight across the chapel, only to be stopped because the wall was harder than her head), she felt the Injustice's eyes on her again.

"…Ethrel, why are you looking at me like that?" Eve asked groggily, and was quite proud she managed that, considering she was sporting a few broken ribs and probably a cracked skull.

There was little reply from the Injustice as Eve contemplated from her position whether it was a good idea to pass out. Then he shook his head and slowly replied, "There is a fair amount of resemblance between you and another of my past."

A look of comprehension failed to appear of Eve's face. Ethrel's reply was characteristically vague, which was a trait of the demon when he explained anything other than the mechanics of killing.

"Who's… that?" She said (Eve assumed he means she looked like someone he met in the past), in a bare whisper. Her mind was falling asleep without permission as she spoke from sheer exhaustion.

"A high priestess," Ethrel told her.

* * *

He came back dripping.

Back when they first met, he went out for walks in the rain. It's been five years since then, and nothing much changed; only now he went out for walks in thunderstorms.

Raye always thought Shane was a little strange, even by his stalker's standard. But then he wouldn't really have defined the rest of his guild as perfectly logical and sane either.

"Juice?" the stalker waved half a bottle of the stuff (apple and black currant) in the air as the wizard slipped past the kitchen, leaving a trail of wet foot prints behind on the highly polished wooden floor. Never mind it was a strange thing to offer juice to a man with every inch soaked through with rain, Raye wasn't all that logical and sane himself.

The black clad wizard stopped, eyes slowly moving to the half bottle of juice suspended in midair to the stalker sitting in full uniform at the kitchen table sipping juice at apparently two o'clock in the morning. Wordlessly, he slipped into a chair opposite of Raye, and poured himself a glass. Silence ensued at this point.

"How's the storm?" Raye said after awhile, feeling as though he ought say something, even if he wouldn't have been able to tell the difference between this storm and every other storm in Rune Midgard, and wouldn't have cared if some one told him.

"Good," Shane replied. And the conversation was effectively killed.

The bottle oscillated between the two in predictable silence. At last, Raye propped the empty bottle onto the table.

"Vash took the liberty to move some of your things," the stalker said finally. "The roof of your room was demolished."

This failed to produce any change in the wizard indicating he was even listening,

"Vash is on… extended leave. Said he needed a break or something with from having to fix leaks in the ceiling all the time," Raye continued, keen on getting the message out whether it was being received on the other end or not. "So… yeah."

He left the sentence hanging. And it hung for the next few minutes with Shane apparently having no intention of picking it up.

The wizard was very intelligent of course, but he talked almost as much as a rock does.

* * *

**End of Chapter 9 – learning the rudiments of living

* * *

**


	10. Darkness before Dawn

**

* * *

**

Chapter 10- Darkness before dawn

* * *

_It was always the darkest before dawn_

_If you want to run away. That's the time to do it._

Except.

The source of her nightmare was standing outside, arms crossed in front of his chest and glaring at her.

It was, of course perfectly normal for Eve to find strange things waiting for her outside her door (random Glastheim monsters, candles, dried fish, weapons left out to be sharpened, Ethrel, cloths and the like). Eve accepted that, if strange things happened outside her door, they happened for a reason.

But still, in times like this, the priestess wished she stayed in bed.

"Come with me." Was the first thing Dante said, in a tone used to address something under the sun that's been dead for a week.

Eve could, of course, have thrown something sharp and metallic in the face of her midnight visitor, which would have at least _appeared_ far more impressive. But all she really did was to adopted her usual crisis role, which was to stand there with her mouth hanging open and let it wash all over her.

Dante's expression was difficult to read. Considering he didn't have any. Truth be told, the assassin cross has always been limited when it came to facial expressions. But at least he still showed _something_ back at Sabre (this usually involves Dante being too busy bullying Eve or pissed off at Raye to realize his omg-scary-assassin-façade had slipped). But ever since they arrived in Glastheim (which was exactly one month ago when he tried to impale her with a pair of daggers), whatever emotions the assassin cross had once show seemed to fade, replaced with something cold and unfeeling.

It seemed almost… inhuman?

"Um." Eve managed. Back to the present, where she was still facing a certain individual outside her door and having to come up with an appropriate response to his request. "Where are you taking me?"

"That is not of your concern." Dante replied blankly.

Eve found that to be very irritating. It was every bit her concern, considering she was going out for a stroll with an assassin cross who's sanity is still in question, and in the middle of Glastheim where she had every potential of becoming mushroom fertilizer long before anyone noticed she went missing. These were times Eve wished she was more like Raye, who would have laughed in the face of it all. But then again, the stalker had way too much confidence for his own good.

* * *

Raye, who rarely lost his composure yelped and leapt back in surprise upon opening his bedroom door to find his wizard guild mate standing right at the entrance, still as a statue.

"Shane. What the hell." He said in a tone of forced calmness, recovering from his shock, how long had the wizard been outside his room? And more importantly, _what_ the hell was the wizard doing there all this time?

"Gaven and Vash are outside." Shane said, apparently not having any intention to explain what he was doing outside the stalker's bedroom at six o'clock in the morning.

"Is he?" the stalker replied blankly. His sleep clogged brain had yet to find the link between the knight's arrival at the guild and Shane's presence outside his bedroom door.

"Vash needed your help removing Gaven from the front door."

* * *

Gaven looked like something a Wild Rose gagged up upon discovery by the rest of the guild. Raye took one look and reluctantly donated his strongest dagger. It had taken several hours with the guild's combine effort (Vash and Raye's) to carve the knight out his dented armour.

The next few days or so Vash spent chasing down priests in the Prontera church with promises, bribes and occasional blackmail. He failed miserably of course but that was ok because Gaven survived anyway. Knights were in general good at getting themselves mangled very badly and recovering afterwards. The ones that don't tend not to live long enough to pass down their genes.

Then one sunny afternoon, half a week after Gaven's appearance which was entirely random and remained positively Eve and Dante free, the guild gathered in the knight's room.

"Well?" Raye asked as Gaven worked on a large chunk of banana bread.

The knight looked up. Sadly, a look of comprehension failed to cross his face.

Raye raised an eyebrow. Vash fretted. The stalker only ever raised eyebrows when Dante was around, usually at the time when a lot of good furniture turned into fire wood. "How did you get all those injuries?" the champion rephrased in a hurry before things got noisy.

"Oh", Gaven scratched the back of his head. "Abysmal knight got me."

The guild fell silent.

"I told him he ought to stop looking so gloomy." The knight added. "I guess he didn't appreciate it much."

Silence ensured.

"And what's with all that black armour?" Gaven continued, ignorant of incredulous stares generated at his direction. "What's wrong with blue? Or green?" He blinked, looking around the room. "Purple is ok too."

"Where's Evelyn and Dante?" Shane was first to break the silence with his quiet voice.

"I don't know, we got separated."

* * *

Eve would have never guess there were so many corridors and hallways in the Glastheim church (but then again the end result would have been the same, with her superior lack of navigation skills). She was struggling to keep up with the assassin cross who seemed to be in a hurry, for reasons she tried not to think about too much as they were most likely associated with her and her sudden demise.

The priestess wish she had more courage to stand up to her abductor, but it was very hard to think when very sharp katars were pressed against one's neck. Their little conversation had ended quickly with the assassin cross loosing his patience and pouncing on Eve before she had time to reach for her own weapon. His final words before dragging her down the corridors were rather encouraging and consisted something of "That was not a request. Come with me quietly you stupid idiot, or I will kill you here and now myself."

Ahead, the darkening path began to slant downward, where the faint sound of dripping water could be heard. Eve squinted at the darkness, without much avail. Suddenly, she collided with something hard. Only when she was stumbling back from the impact, did Eve realize she had walked right into Dante who had stopped all of a sudden.

"I trust you realize you're going the wrong way." A voice drifted from the darkness. Eve almost felt Dante stiffen at the sound. Not far ahead, a ball of blue light suddenly flared up. Eve's eyes watered at the bright flare which appeared surprising like her own _Ruwach_ spell. As light closed, the priestess realized it was being held by a tall figure, whose face was shaded by the hood covering his head.

"This way, then." The man said pleasantly, walking pass Dante who was expressionless once more. "We won't want Miss Evelyn to miss out on her test."

Only Eve could feel the slight tremor in the assassin cross' body as he turned to follow.

* * *

**End of chapter 10- Darkness before dawn**


	11. The Test

**Disclaimer:** I do not own RO

* * *

**Chapter 11 – The test**

* * *

_Light at the end of the tunnel_

_Is just the incoming train_

Eve knew something was distinctively wrong as soon as she stepped into the room. It wasn't just the instinctive alarm bells that were going off in all random directions in her head, or the complex knot in her tummy she was having no avail identifying which end is which. _Or_ the fact Dante was staring at her in a scary sort of way (ok, ok, so maybe that did contribute largely to the panic).

It was true Dante had the emotional capacities of a rock majority of the time, but even Eve could detect something emanate from the assassin cross this time and she shrank back from his eyes like someone's dinner.

A tiny whoosh escaped the assassin cross' lips, barely audible. Eve peered curiously at the figure in question who only ever sighed when the apocalypse came or when Raye took up ballet in pink frills, whichever would come first. He wordlessly handed her a box. Rectangular box, black, very sturdy.

The priestess poked at it the way someone poked the three headed dragon of Moscovia in his slumber.

Nothing, no shooting fireballs, lightning. No blasting into the next dimension. She peered inside.

There was a dagger inside. Now Eve hadn't seen a great deal of daggers in her life (she was a priest so that was forgivable), but the blade in question was very different to anything that had been described and looked oddly like the whole tooth of some sort of creature.

The fact Dante was trying to hand her a dagger was dodgy in itself, exchanges such as these usually ended in blood shed (her blood, in particular). Never the less Eve took the dagger, which felt warm to touch. For a moment, she considered it a sign that Dante for all his lack of expression wanted her to survive the test after all.

She didn't have very long to ponder. Because the rear doors of the hall slammed open then. Even in the dim lights, Eve recognized two wickedly curved horns and the sound of stamping hooves that belonged to the creatures which dwelt in the depth of the Glastheim.

The large bovid wielding an even larger hammer bellowed insanely.

Eve gaped at it intelligently.

The Majoruros charged.

Eve eeped, ducked just in time to save herself from braining.

"Defeat it and you can leave," the guy in black with the hood said pleasantly off to the side as though Eve was taking a stroll in a flower studded field and not currently getting trampled by some half crazed bovid.

They'd have to scrape her off the floor with a _spatula_ at the end of this.

She needed a plan.

* * *

The guild sat in their usual places in the dining room. An hour ago Vash had woken up to find Shane standing next to his bed. A series of events which followed inevitably involved a lot of yelling and people falling out of people's beds.

It was well acknowledged that Shane had weird sleeping hours, but Vash privately wished the wizard would keep his sleeping habits to himself.

"It's three o'clock in the morning." Someone mumbled from somewhere in the room. Vash assumed it was Raye since the only other person in the room was currently snoring.

"We need to go to Glastheim," Said Shane.

The silence (apart from Gaven's snoring) was profound. Vash sighed inwardly. The wizard rarely asked of anything. And when he did, things usually went his way.

"What do you have in mind?" He asked. Very carefully. There wasn't enough funding to mend anymore broken /doors/walls/roofs/furniture.

"Evelyn is in trouble."

The guild (Vash and Raye) once again fell into silent contemplation. No one asked how the wizard knew of such things (it was arguably better for their own sanity). But Shane was rarely wrong in those things.

"We should all go, then." Vash concluded, finally.

Raye shrugged.

Gaven mumbled something inaudible in his sleep, promptly slid off his chair into a heap on the floor.

They left the knight on the floor that night.

* * *

A dozen or so spikes exploded from the ground at the precise moment and nearly making off with several of her limbs. As far as Eve was concerned, the future was not looking terribly bright.

Her encounters with the hammer wielding creature was limited, and usually involved running away at top speed in the opposite direction. Attacking the thing head on was out of question. The smallest of Hammer Fall from the beast simply meant she would end up a smear on the floor, and impeding smear hood was not particularly attractive.

The plan was simple, and born of simple logic rather than sophisticated planning. And as spikes exploded from the ground on impact of a hammer fall once more, Eve simply vanished.

Her reappearance behind the leading bovid was a surprise, judging from the way it had frozen on the spot. Gripping the strange dagger tightly, Eve drove the blade into the monster with all her might. She expected resistance getting a deep enough cut through the bovid's hide, or a cut at all into the thing (because, well, the monster was big and she was not, and what sane individual attacks a Majoruros with a mere dagger anyway?). Yet to her surprise, the blade went through easily, in fact, so easily that her hand simply vanished into the Majoruros' behind as though it was paper mache.

The mess of blood and organs spraying everywhere acutely followed. Eve stood there stunned as the massive beast dropped.

Then, all four of the green gems which decorated the hilt of her blade exploded into halos of light, and the blade, bathed in the crimson blood of its fallen enemy, burst into song.

Her surroundings blurred as her hands flew to her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise which spiraled louder and louder until it was a deafening wail. She took one step back and tripped on some dissembled skeleton scatted around the room for presumably decorative purposes, the blade fell out of her hand and skidded across the floor before it was stopped by a booted foot.

"The Grimtooth has chosen, it seems." Said the cloaked figure pleasantly. "Looks like Miss Evelyn's test will be starting shortly."

Dante's expression was unreadable, but his eyes never left the figure of the priestess, which slumped unconscious on the floor.

* * *

**End of Chapter 11- The Test**

* * *

AN: Sheesh, when was the last time I updated this? XD I was cleaning out my desktop the other day.. and found a chapter of this... with half a page of the next chapter. Bah.. I hate leaving things unfinished.


End file.
